Botwin, as played by Mary-Louise Parker, is one of TV’s new femme fatales: the hard-boiled woman, the girl you don’t mess with. And we – as a TV audience – adore her. This summer, at least seven hot shows will bring us women who are hard to love but impossible not to watch.

“The Closer”‘s Brenda Leigh Johnson – Kyra Sedgwick’s steel magnolia interrogator – introduced this new female archetype when the show premiered on TNT in June 2005. California mom turned drug dealer Nancy Botwin followed that August, and now there’s a flood:

Grace Hanadarko (Holly Hunter) is an Oklahoma City detective on TNT’s “Saving Grace” who chugs beer and sleeps with inappropriate men.

Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) packs a Beretta semiautomatic in her belt on USA’s “Burn Notice.” She’s based in Miami, but her past includes a stint in the Irish Republican Army.

Less confrontational but equally successful are such operators as Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks), the top secretary on AMC’s “Mad Men,”

who uses her feminine wiles to get what she wants, and Belle du Jour (Billie Piper), the prostitute on Showtime’s British import, “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” which premieres Monday night after “Weeds.”

No one’s sure why audiences have taken so strongly to these new gals, but the producers of these shows have their theories. Several point out that women are watching series television and they want characters they can relate to.

“Brenda’s flaws are all more or less associated with the feminine side of human nature,” says James Duff, creator and executive producer of “The Closer.” “She’s tough in the ways I think women are tough: She knows when you are lying and she wants things her way, but she wants to be attractive and she doesn’t sleep around.”

Circumstances have made some of these characters nearly impenetrable. When “Weeds”‘ fourth season debuts Monday night, we learn that Nancy Botwin has burned her home to the ground, and that she’s whisked her family off to a new life in a Southern California border town. Nancy’s getting even more deeply involved in the world of drug-dealing.

While most executive producers and actresses said their leading ladies were perhaps “hard on the outside, but soft on the inside,” they all admitted they all have relationship problems.

“The Closer”‘s Brenda has a boyfriend, but he’s about “all she can handle,” says Duff.

“Weeds”‘ Nancy will fall in love this season, Kohan says. “It’s a real love,” but of course it will be complicated.

Mary Shannon has a minor-league baseball player boyfriend, but she won’t let him get too close.

“She isn’t very comfortable with anything mushy like feelings,” says McCormack. “It’s like sitting on your wallet – it doesn’t hurt, but it’s not comfortable.”

That’s true as well for Grace Hanadarko, who wears her heart on her sleeve far more than she means to and doesn’t apologize for her erotic adventures.

“We never call Tony Soprano promiscuous,” says Nancy Miller, creator and executive producer of “Saving Grace.” “Grace is not a going to apologize for her sexual appetite.”

Neither is Belle du Jour. On “Secret Diary of a Call Girl,” she discloses, “it’s not just the sex, it’s the power. This man wants me so much, he’ll pay for me. And he’ll pay a lot.”

“Belle is confident about who she is, and she understands what she wants from life,” says Andrew Zein, executive producer of the show. “She’s very much her own woman. She’s very empowered.”

The women of summer TV wield their power in different ways. “Mad Men”‘s Joan Holloway gets hers from her hourglass figure and her keen awareness of her own allure, something of a lost art in today’s post-feminist times.

“Because the show takes place in 1960, Joan is allowed to use her femininity and sexuality without feminists jumping down her throat. Back then, those things were considered incredibly powerful,” says Hendricks.

Meanwhile “Burn Notice'”s Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar) draws her power from her tight body and a handy fireram.

“Well, I don’t think Fiona spends a lot of time getting a mani/pedi,” laughs Anwar. But Fiona has one trait that all of this summer’s fierce females share: “She’s more comfortable in her defensive mode than she is in her vulnerability.”